


are we names in a tattoo

by remembermyfic



Series: and it's called black magic [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Curse Breaking, F/M, Rule 63, look this fic got out of hand and took on a life of its own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 14:54:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembermyfic/pseuds/remembermyfic
Summary: “Most of the time, curses aren’t specifically or intentionally cast,” Alex explains. “It takes a lot of supplies, and time, and energy to set a curse. Most magic carriers won’t do it; it’s not worth it.”“If it’s not a curse…”“It’s a mutated spell.”





	are we names in a tattoo

**Author's Note:**

> Per usual, if you know someone in the tags or whatever, maybe click out of the window, thanks. 
> 
> I've carefully tagged characters. If they're not listed, I'm 95% confident they don't show up in the fic. 
> 
> R & L, you know what this is about. 
> 
> Shoutout to the gr8 babes ever GC for spawning this freaking universe with a well-shared tweet-cap.
> 
> Mistakes are mine! I claim them for my own.

Connor calls her on a dreary Wednesday afternoon, right when Alex was getting bored of breaking tiny little house charms and hexes in high school cafeterias. 

“Stan Bowman called,” she says, like NHL GMs are normal clients. “He thinks the Blackhawks are cursed.”

Alex rolls her eyes. There are more myths than facts out there about magic and it’s probably the single most irritating thing about practicing magic. “Okay.” 

“They want someone to take a look.” 

Alex’s stomach flips. “Connor.” 

There’s a smile in Connor’s voice when she says, “Your meeting is actually tomorrow morning with management, 10am. But there’s a ticket at on call for tonight’s game if you want it.” 

“If I want,” Alex scoffs. “If you need me, I’ll be screaming at hockey players all night.” 

“Noted.” Alex can still hear Connor’s smile, because Connor also knows Alex prefers getting the lay of the land before she gets to work, and has a weak spot for Blackhawks hockey. 

It doesn’t change the thrill that races through her when she lets the crowd sweep her into the arena and down to where the Hawks are warming up. The spells hum around her, mostly standard league-required protection spells and the odd jinx like it’s going to make a difference in the game, but her skin itches and her magic jumps with something else entirely. 

_ It’s complicated _ , she thinks, then laughs at herself, eyes still scanning the ice, searching and drawn in. 

So it shouldn’t be that much of a shock when her gaze catches on that of one of the players. Everything in her jolts, something snaps, and Alex feels a thrill race down her spine. It makes her breathless, anxious, anticipating the excitement of the game differently, more intensely. The player, number seventeen, Alex notes, drifts towards the glass, eyes still locked on hers. She tucks her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and watches as he knocks twice on the glass. The kids in the front row lose their minds, but Alex thinks, irrationally but with certainty, that it had been for her. 

A smile spreads over her face as she thinks, a little hysterically,  _ call me on our unholy psychic bond, babe. _

Maybe this is going to be more fun than she’d thought.  __

 

Dylan Strome. 

That’s his name, Google tells her, and he himself reveals when she follows her instincts to the bar where the team is celebrating their hard-fought win. Okay stats in Arizona, good stats in Chicago. Tall and lanky and exactly her type. Even more so with his mouth on her collarbone, his hands pressing against her back as she arches into the sensation. She’s on the tip of her toes, thigh wrapped around his hip because that’s where he’s moved her, pinned between the wall and his body. She’s small, but she’s not light, and yet here she is. 

She is absolutely not upset about it. 

Alex knows what she looks like, knows the type of person she is, and doesn’t see a reason to limit herself by not fucking people she comes into contact with because of work. She does corporate curse breaking, she refuses to limit herself to people she meet randomly on the street, or in bars. Especially in bars. She only meets idiots in bars, and they can so rarely give her what she needs. 

She hates unsatisfying sex. 

Which, to be fair, is the exact opposite of what she’s getting right now. Dylan’s good, knows what he’s doing, knows how to watch her reactions and to repeat the things that make her legs shake. She comes once against the wall, then again when he drops her on the bed and sinks to his knees between her thighs. 

By the end of the night they’ve split six orgasms unevenly between them and Alex slips out of the condo and back to her place. She feels good and stretches luxuriously under the shower water pressure she bought the apartment for before collapsing to the mattress. 

 

The meeting with management is unhelpful, though Alex isn’t surprised. It makes her a little irritable though, skin prickling as Bowman himself leads her to the dressing room. The team is stripping down from practice, the space echoing and loud. Alex feels the itch between her shoulders settle.

“Gentlemen,” Bowman calls, over the chaos of a post-practice locker room. There’s a moment where the room has to settle, then another when they realize it’s a woman standing there. 

“Shit,” she hears someone yelp and bites her lip against the laugh that bubbles up her throat. 

“This is Alex Debrincat,” Bowman goes on, once the room has settled and some of the guys have pulled on various pieces of clothing. Alex specifically does not notice Dylan, sitting a little slack-jawed and shirtless just to her right. She’d known what she was getting into, but she also knows he’d had no idea. She’ll give him more than a moment. 

It won’t stop her from laughing to herself though. 

“Ms. DeBrincat’s here to deal with the poison.” 

And doesn’t that make Alex raise her eyebrows. “That’s what you’re calling it?” 

There’s silence for two beats, then three, but Alex has never once shied away from anyone, and that includes high ranking CEOs, let alone vice presidents and general managers of hockey teams. Bowman looks at her. 

“Is there something wrong with that?” 

Honestly, Alex needs to stop forgetting that curses aren’t run of the mill things for everyone. For all that magic is known, the US is still extremely private about it, and it irritates Alex to no end. It’s how curses grow minds of their own, how governments continue to corrupt themselves with more and more power, and how what Alex would bet was once a benign jinx, has turned into one hell of a bad luck charm. 

She shrugs. “In concept? No. Call it whatever you want, whatever helps you sleep at night.” 

Bowman looks at her for another moment, and Alex isn’t sure if she’s proud of herself or impressed by Bowman when he doesn’t chew her out for subordination or whatever. Technically, she is his employee, at least until she figures out what’s going on. “But.” 

“But you call it anything other than what it is, and it becomes a beast in its own right,” Alex answers. “You want to know why no one can figure out what’s going on in Edmonton? Because no one’s talking about it outside of quiet whispers. Buffalo? Eichel’s talking about it, and looks what’s happening. It’s fighting back, and Buffalo’s finally making decisions that might actually get them somewhere.”

The room is silent, tense. 

Alex sighs. “Look. Call it a curse for now. That’s what it feels like anyway. Call it a poison and it is going to leak into every nook and cranny of this organization. Then we have a problem.” 

The door opens behind them and Alex almost loses her breath with the strength of what follows. Patrick Sharp is beautiful, sure, Alex has eyes, but holy shit is he also carrying a fucking cloud. 

“Holy shit.” 

She doesn’t realize she’s stumbled until she’s caught, doesn’t realize it’s Dylan Strome until she looks up to find him frowning strangely at Sharp. The frown softens when he looks at her and oh. Oh shit. Oh double shit because there’s a Patrick Sharp-related curse floating around the goddamn Blackhawks and Alex is starting to realize that, well, maybe there’s something here too. 

Magic doesn’t lie. 

Alex is well and truly fucked. 

“Ms DeBrincat?” 

Alex steadies herself, ignores the weird bereft feeling when Strome steps back. “Mr Sharp, have you ever been cursed.” 

The locker room almost explodes. Alex lets the chaos reign, because she recognizes what she’s basically just accused half the room of doing. Bowman doesn’t seem fazed, not that it shocks Alex, and Strome’s still right there, watching her, Alex can tell. It makes something itch in the back of her skull. 

“Not that I know of,” is Sharp’s eventual response, once the chaos of the room has died down. “Something tells me I’m wrong.”

Alex tucks her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and shrugs. Her fingertips are itching like they do when there’s so much magic to pull apart. It’s her favourite part of curse breaking. “Got an office we can use, Mr. Bowman?” 

Bowman looks between them like he wants to ask a million questions Alex doesn’t have the answers to yet. She waits him out anyway. It wouldn’t be the first time a client wanted answers before she’s had the opportunity to ask the question. Eventually, he just nods and Alex motions both him and Sharp to precede her out of the locker room. 

She double steps when a hand grips her arm. Strome looks at his hand wrapped around her bicep like he hadn’t realized he was reaching out. 

“Um.”

“I’ll be fine,” she says, like a reflex. The both blink at each other. He’s worried, she can tell - about her, which is weird in it’s own right - but Alex has done this hundreds of thousands of times. She knows what she’s doing. Bowman hired her because she’s good. 

“No, I know that,” Strome responds, and he does. It makes Alex’s heart flip over in her chest. They met less than 24 hours ago, spent a phenomenal night together, and it feels all jumbled in her head, the things she feels like she knows about him that they absolutely have not talked about. 

His forehead is wrinkled. “I want to tell you you’ve got this?” 

The way he makes it a question at the end makes her snort, yet she’s strangely gentle when she says, “I know that. I’m good at my job.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, but even she can feel the way it’s genuinely difficult for him to unwrap his fingers from her arm. 

“You stink,” she says with the same gentle tone. “Shower. Do what you need to do. I’m going to go break a curse.” 

There’s a weird tension that sits there for a moment before he says. “Call me. When you’re done.” 

“What?” 

He shakes his head, like he’s trying to shake something else off. Considering Alex feels like she wants to roll her shoulders and stretch out her neck, she can’t really judge. “Where’s your phone.” 

She hands it over before she knows she’s doing it, unlocked and everything. When he hands it back, there’s a number at the top of the screen and the cat emoji in the message screen. 

“Call me,” he repeats. 

Alex knows she will. 

 

Or, well, she means to call him, but she gets out of the meeting with Sharp and management, fucking exhausted and wrung out. Whatever’s on Sharp is bigger than him, which means there’s an anchor she has to find, and then a whole bunch of spell work she’s going to have to untangle individually. 

_ Heading home, _ she texts him instead, because she’s irritated and cranky and she does not want to take that to him.  _ Long day. _

_ Okay. _

It leaves her frustrated, because yeah there’s a part of her that absolutely wants to spend another amazing night with Dylan Strome. She’s sure it would leave her just as fucked out and loose-limbed and that’s tempting with the way she wants to roll her shoulders and crack every vertebrae of her spine. 

So she orders take out, and sulks on her bed. It leaves her twitching and itchy as she falls into a fitful sleep. 

 

She heads back into the UC the next day, irritable as god-awful anything. She’d spoken to Bowman that morning on the phone, and managed to finagle full access to the entire arena. It speaks to what they think of her abilities, but also their desperation. 

It’s late enough that the Hawks are already gathering for game time, but early enough that Alex doesn’t feel like she’s going to break any pre-game rituals or game prep requirements. So she feels confident heading down to ice level, to the bench the Hawks use every home game. 

Dylan’s there, sitting on the bench, methodically taping his stick. The itch settles and fuck,  _ fuck _ . 

“Fancy meeting you here.” 

He doesn’t jump, like he’d already known she was there. It wouldn’t surprise her. She lets herself acknowledge the awareness that’s been humming there, the drive and pull that has her settling right beside her. 

“Figure it out?” he asks, meticulously tearing off his tape. 

It feels right when he sets the stick aside and presses his shoulder to hers. It magnifies a feeling of calm, but also amplifies the anticipations she knows is his about the upcoming game. 

“I have an educated guess,” she answers.

He nods, waits a beat like he’s unsure. “And us?” 

“I don’t even know,” she admits on a huffed out breath. “It’s never happened before.” 

“That makes me feel weirdly better.”

Alex snorts. “You started it.” 

“What?” 

“Last night. You started it.”

“I was playing hockey! You found me in the bar.” 

“You found me in the stands.” 

He startles. “That was you?” 

She’s not sure what makes her hop the boards, but she faces him when she has her shoes on the ice, smirking a little. “How do you think I knew who you were?” 

He shrugs, but there’s a little smile on his face too. “I play hockey.” 

Alex wants to tell him that level of cockiness is just rude and not at all attractive, but he’s weirdly shy about it. It’s a look, is what she’s saying. Proud of what he’s accomplished, but still a little bit in awe of where he is. It’s a frustratingly good look for him. She shuffles back to reset herself. Well, and to take a moment to really take in she’s currently standing on the ice at the UC. 

“I had to google you.” 

He wrinkles his nose and it makes her laugh. She can feel the weird displeasure in the back of his mind, and she figures he must feel the fondness she can’t seem to stop. 

There’s a vibration in the ice. It’s the hum of magic she’d originally felt when she’d been watching the game a few days ago. It makes her smile as she slides towards the Hawks logo. She loves magic. 

“And you still came to the bar.” 

She shrugs, crouches down, touches her hands to the logo and gets a shock. That’s interesting. “Not everyday you have that level of connection.” 

He’s leaning over the boards now, forearms braced on blue plastic. He laughs a little. “It was good.” 

“That’s an understatement,” Alex offers with a wink as she drums her fingers on the ice. There’s a spell here that isn’t the protection ones. Good work too, if she’s right. She’s confident she is. “Come here.” 

To his credit, Dylan just does it, leaves his stick clattering against the boards. Alex is kind of grateful no one’s asking how she feels about watching those gangly limbs come across the ice, dumb slides on his feet. The way he nudges her, makes her roll her eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah, shut up.” She still lets him lean into her when he’s squatting beside her. Alex feels the magic pulse, like it recognize one of its own. “A binding spell.” 

“A what?” 

Alex hums. “Anyone on your team magically inclined?” 

He’s so close when she looks over at him. It’s as easy as breathing to see the way his eyes dart down to her mouth. The want is there, his and hers, swirling warmly in her stomach. 

“I’m working,” she says mildly. 

Dylan’s smile is unrepentant. He feels it too, she knows. “Multitask?” 

“Magic affinity. Your team.” But she can’t help the smile from sprouting over her face. 

This time, Dylan shrugs. “Haven’t been here long enough. Why?” 

The hum she releases this time is a reflex. “Your team is close.” 

That makes Dylan laugh. “Hockey teams are close.” 

She sits back, butt to her heels. Her pants are going to be soaked through at the knee but she feels like she has a better hold on what’s going on. And it gives her the opportunity to show off a little. She glances over at Dylan. “Want to see something cool?” 

His eyes immediately light up. “Is it magic?” 

“Yeah,” she laughs, and sets a palm on the ice. She doesn’t close her eyes, because she doesn’t have to, that’s a myth, but she does close her hand into a fist. The magic comes up in strands. 

“Holy fuck.” 

Alex’s heart trips in her chest. He looks so in awe of her, or at least of the magic she can demand. “Is that what magic looks like?” 

“Spells yeah, usually.” She plucks at a thread, then delves her fingers inside. “Most of these are the NHL protection spells, the things that keep magically inclined from using magic during a game.”

Dylan reaches a hand out. The threads quiver as he strokes them, catches her wrist and palm as he does it because he can and she’ll let him. “There’s more?” 

“In the Hawks’ case, yeah,” Alex replies. She can see the spell, copper and golden, entwined and glowing. 

“Can you break it?” 

She doesn’t laugh, but it’s close, only because it’s child’s play now that her suspicion is confirmed, even if it’s going to be a pain in the ass. These are the kind of spells that are easy but labour intensive. “Absolutely.” 

She knows Dylan’s grinning before she looks at him and yeah, she can tell now the awe is more of a her thing, than a magic thing. “Now?” 

“No,” she answers with a chuckle. She’s going to have to get Bowman to get the team to come in early and she’ll have to make a grocery run to pick up some salt - for the aesthetics and to help steady the team while she works - but she also knows how close he is, how much he wants and Alex can’t say she feels any different. 

She drops the magic back to the ice and it disappears the minute it hits the frozen surface. “You have a game to play.” 

“After,” he offers. 

Alex shivers, and it’s definitely not the ice. It’s indulgent, but Alex can’t say she isn’t excited to explore whatever their connection is in a different environment. She stands, and he follows, towers over her and oh fuck is he her type. “After.” 

He grins. 

 

He texts her after the game to ask if she’s chill in the stands, like he’s already aware that she’s okay without going down to a post-game locker room, and honestly, all of the fun stuff is happening on the ice anyway. The magic is crackling as she waits and Alex loves watching it arc and sputter and shimmer. 

Which is where Dylan finds her, eyes darting around the ice surface. “You’re frowning.”

“Am I?” 

She goes still when he brushes his thumb over her forehead. “What’s not right?” 

“The magic’s taking forever to settle.” 

He shifts, antsy, she can feel. “Can it wait?” 

“It’s not my job,” is her murmured reply. It takes a tug on her ponytail to get her to refocus and oh, oh yes. “Hi.” 

“Hi.” She gets the sense she’s lucky he’s laughing, but it’s buried in a lightness that makes her smile. “Ready to get out of here?” 

She stands in answer, lets him take her hand. Her stomach flips pleasantly, and she ducks her head to hide her smile. 

 

He collapses beside her, both of them panting, chests heaving. Fuck, she’d been right. She should have taken him up on his offer last night, too. She can feel the contentment sliding through her very bones. It’s a few minutes before Dylan moves too, though he does her the courtesy of bringing back a damp cloth when he returns from tossing the condom. 

Eventually, they settle, her head against his shoulder and his fingers drawing random, tantalizing patterns on her bicep.

She’s half way to dozing when she hears, “It’s not a curse.” 

She looks up at him. “That’s what you’re thinking about?” 

“It’s been bugging me,” he replies with a shrug that jostles her head, and Alex gives up any hope she’d had of dozing off. 

“Most of the time, curses aren’t specifically or intentionally cast,” she explains. “It takes a lot of supplies, and time, and energy to set a curse. Most magic carriers won’t do it; it’s not worth it.” 

She glances up and he’s so focused on her. It makes her shiver, and she doesn’t bother to even pretend it isn’t because of him. He would know better anyway. He smiles as he runs his hand up her back. She feels helpless in the way she rolls over him to splay over his chest. The feedback loop between them is addicting. It’s almost a compulsion to lean in and kiss him, slow and thorough.

Eventually, Dylan’s the one to break the kiss, still preoccupied, Alex can tell. He presses his mouth to her cheek, her temple, then murmurs into her forehead, “If it’s not a curse…”

“It’s a mutated spell,” she finishes easily. 

“I don’t think I knew spells could do that.” 

“It’s like this,” Alex says, propping her chin on her hands so she can look at him, still spread over his chest. “Remember a couple of days ago when Bowman talked about the poison in the locker room?” 

“And you put him in his place? Yeah, it was hot.”

She smacks him, but he only laughs, catches her hand to kiss her palm. She huffs, but goes on: “I also said if we didn’t call it what it was it would grow into being a poison.”

“That’s what happened?” 

“For the most part. It’s definitely a spell that took on a life of its own.” She shrugs, tries not to arch into the way he drums his fingers along her spine. “I’ll know for sure tomorrow, but I’d bet there’s a very mad binding spell throwing a temper tantrum.” 

“Spells do that?” 

Alex kisses him, almost exasperated. “Have you never encountered magic?” 

“Not really. I’m friends with hockey players, and my parents have no Ability.” 

He’s starting to get hard against her and she moves into it, spreading her legs wider around his hips. He makes a noise and Alex feels her stomach heat. This much sex can’t be good for a post-game Dylan but fuck. Alex is weak and easy for him and it’s been three days. 

So she doesn’t fight him when he flips them and moves with him. She’ll be relaxed tomorrow, that’s for sure, and the way Dylan’s kissing down her chest means he’s about to eat her out. Alex would be insane to say no to that. 

 

The salt is entirely for show, not that Alex is going to tell anyone. It’s her opinion that most ingredients in magic are unnecessary, but it does provide her the opportunity to prove her own suspicions correct. Five anchors, four present and still playing and one off the ice. Patrick Sharp arrives last and Alex can all but feel the magic click into place. 

“You’re not cursed,” she starts with as she pours salt into Sharp’s hand. The magic is skipping through the room, sparking and shifting at the presence of it’s five anchors. 

“We’re not?” Jonathan Toews eyes her suspiciously. 

“Let this be a lesson,” she answers. “Magic shifts and changes over time, especially when you attach it to moveable objects like a bird or a hockey player that can be traded.” 

Silence falls, but Alex is sure realization is starting to sink in. She crouches down to tap the logo, presses her palm to the floor and lifts the strands of magic the way she had on the ice with Dylan. She pulls out the gold and copper strands. 

“This is a very angry binding spell.” 

Towes flinches. Alex isn’t happy about it, per se. She mostly hopes the idiots have learned their lesson. 

“People don’t think magic has feelings and whether magic itself has feelings is irrelevant in the face of the fact that the humans that wield it have feelings. And when those feelings turn negative - anger, sadness, resentment or loss because of a trade - the spell can shift with it.” 

The room is pindrop silent as Alex discards the safe and happy spells. She refuses to look up at she works, apologizes to the logo as she steps on it. The centre of the spell thumps in time with a heartbeat, steady in the middle of Tommy Hawk’s head. She settles there, cross-legged, tugs up the ‘heart’ to see the five strings, stretching out across the locker room to the five men who likely made an impulsive decision to win a championship. Or three. 

She conjures a pair of scissors out of thin air, gleaming silver. She finds Toews’ stoic face. “Next time you want to win a Cup, or you think about doing magic drunk or hungover, whatever it is, the rule of thumb is never link magic to things that can leave.” 

In quick succession, she cuts all five strands. It’s not showy or fancy, because magic rarely is, but she can feel the magic dissipate, even as the ‘heart’ still thumps in her palm. She picks at the copper strands until they fall away, then lowers the healthy, golden magic back to the logo. She taps on Tommy Hawk again, three times, and magic darts out in all directions. It creates quite the show until it settles at the base of each individual stall. 

“As a fan, the championships make me happy. As a fan, a good solid core makes me happy. As someone with Abilities,” and here she looks to Toews again, because she knows who runs this locker room. “Magic isn’t a toy and it certainly isn’t an edge to get you a championship. Got it?” 

“Got it,” Toews answers, solemnly. 

Silence falls again as Alex makes her way off the logo and dusts off her hands. “Have a good skate.” 

“Wait,” and that’s Brandon Saad. “That’s it? What about the salt?” 

“No one said salt was necessary,” she replies. “Thanks gentlemen.” 

 

She sits in the stands for practice, to make sure that the on ice magic stabilises with the new magic now attached to the team. The puck bounces strangely a few times, enough for Alex to narrow her eyes. It doesn’t seem like anything the team’s Able won’t be able to handle. 

Yet she stays put, and feels the tension settle when Dylan sits next to her, showered post-practice and comfortable in his street clothes. 

“You knew it was them,” he says. “Like, right away.” 

“I had my suspicions,” she shrugs, lets him take her hand on the arm rest. She trembles when he plays with her fingers. 

“I was reading about soulmates this morning.” He frowns when she essentially has no reaction. “You knew about that too.” 

“I had my suspicions,” she says again just to feel the fond exasperation that tickles the back of her mind. 

It tapers off to nerves and Alex looks up at him. He clears his throat. “We can break it.”

The very idea makes her stomach turn over uncomfortably. “Do you want to?” 

“No,” and his gaze is absolutely steady when it meets hers. “I don’t know what this is but-” 

Alex is already blowing out a relieved breath. It’s fast, sure, but she can also still vividly remember how it felt that first night, when he’d still been there itching in the back of her head, but not there with her. “Road trips might be hell.” 

He weaves his hand into hers and it’s sweet. Alex likes sweet. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s figure it out.” 

Dylan’s grinning, so happy and so wide when he leans into kiss her. It makes everything awkward, but she can feel how giddy he is and it diffuses through her, spreads to her fingertips. “Together?” 

She rolls his eyes, because she has a feeling this is what she’s signed up for now. “Yeah, Dylan. Together.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If y'all figure out what this is, let me know. It possessed me for like, a week until it was written.


End file.
